What Did Obama Really Say at West Point?

A supertanker sails a long way, they say, between the moment the helmsman sets a new course and the vessel fully responds.

This was the task President Barack Obama took on this week, as he sought to set a new course for the U.S. ship of state in international waters.

What he said today in his commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York was nothing less than turning the wheel hard over for U.S. foreign policy.

Even though, as commander-in-chief, he is the nation’s chief helmsman, it will be some time before the U.S. supertanker responds, and even then not necessarily on the new course Obama is trying to set. The balance of his presidency will show how well he can succeed.

To extend the metaphor, Obama must also navigate between the Scylla of critics who want the United States to continue military power as its principal tool of destiny, and the Charybdis of those who would like to see war abolished in favor of other, non-lethal instruments.

He has no lack of critics. Even before the last third of his speech, one leading U.S. news channel cut to an attack by one of Obama’s conservative Congressional adversaries. Another was ready to take Obama on while he was still shaking the hands of newly commissioned army second lieutenants.

What is the president’s sin in the eyes of these naysayers?

Obama understands that the world has changed since the end of the Cold War, which saw the collapse of Soviet internal and external empires and European communism; the diffusion of power; the rise of new economic competitors and globalization in general; and a shift from state monopoly of violence to what are euphemistically called “non-state actors.”

In fact, speaking in politically defensive-mode, Obama went to great lengths — perhaps too great — to argue that the U.S. “remains the one indispensable nation” and, tempting the lessons of history, that this “will likely be true for the century to come.”

He also paid the politically necessary homage to U.S. exceptionalism — “I believe in [it] with every fiber of my being” — but then usefully redefined it in terms of support for the rule of law and recognition that “more lasting peace…can only come through opportunity and freedom for people everywhere.”

In trying to defang critics who argue that Obama does not care for the use of military force, it was no accident that he spoke at West Point.

It was no accident that he visited with US troops in Afghanistan this week; and no accident that he will travel to Omaha Beach in Normandy next week for the 70th anniversary of D-Day.

To be fair to critics who argue that Obama is less enamored of the use of force than many of his predecessors, they have a point, at least in analyzing his proclivities.

Indeed, if his approach to the outside world can be reduced to a single phrase — as is so often true of presidents — it would be “no useless wars.”

That injunction has surely colored his successful withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq and the end of a U.S. combat role in Afghanistan at the end of this year (though he intends to leave some 9,800 troops behind, assuming that the new Afghan president agrees, as the likely winner has said he will do).

In fact, given that the 2003 invasion of Iraq remains one of the worst foreign policy blunders in U.S. history, and that no good U.S. national security interest has been served by our staying in Afghanistan as long as we have, Obama deserves credit for quieting most of his domestic critics as he has slowly extricated the US from both military ventures.

Obama also used his speech to justify that the US has not allowed itself to be sucked into the military conflict in Syria (where his stance has the support of most Americans, if not most of the Washington commentariat.)

He has also emphasized the U.S. choice of diplomacy over military power in dealing with the Iranian nuclear program — though, in another mantra: “we reserve all options to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

While he characterized Russian policy “toward former Soviet states” as “aggression,” and implied the same about Chinese behavior in the South China Sea, Obama did, however, project an ambiguous position, preferring to define the range of debate while leaving his own choices unclear.

Instead, the president laid out standards for judging.

On the one hand, “the United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it — when our people are threatened; when our livelihood is at stake; or when the security of our allies in in danger.”

Even so, we have to ask “tough questions about whether our actions are proportional and effective and just.”

In other circumstances, the “threshold for military action must be higher,” and we should seek allies and partners.

Then, in his one sally into alternatives — otherwise a notable lacuna in the speech — “We must broaden our tools to include diplomacy and development.”

Obama also tried to put the best face he could on what has so far been Russian president Vladimir Putin’s tactical victory in Ukraine (though, in all likelihood, a long-term Russian strategic defeat), by stressing all the things that the US and others did to soften the blow.

The best parts of President Obama’s speech — at least, let us hope, the most lasting — dealt with longer-running problems facing humankind: the importance of democracy and human rights; the empowering of civil society; the fight against extremism, the promotion of useful international institutions; the need to ratify the Law of the Sea Convention; and, as a unifying theme, the role of US leadership in all these areas and more.

Yet he made only a passing reference to climate change, supposedly a hallmark of his agenda.

What was lacking, unfortunately, was “connective tissue” in terms of process, especially the need to relate regional apples and oranges to one another.

While renewing the U.S. priority on countering terrorism, Obama failed to identify its sources in the Middle East or discuss the risks of regional conflict “…as the Syrian civil war spills across borders.”

He did not propose means for resolving the new Russian challenge to George H.W. Bush’s goal of a “Europe whole and free” and at peace, or indicate that the U.S. would stop ignoring the continent.

Nor did he even mention recent Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts championed by Secretary of State John Kerry, or introduce what is supposedly a keystone of his foreign policy, the “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia.

In the final analysis, the test of President Obama’s foreign policy for the balance of his term will depend on whether he will finally begin integrating different elements of his approach; relate different instruments of power and influence to one another; upgrade strategic thinking in his administration; and place resources where the new world he conjures requires.

Obama’s only money item today was to ask Congress to spend $5 billion more on counter-terrorism. Instead, these funds should just be taken from a Pentagon budget still out of balance with his goals.

The president should instead be directing money to non-military areas, beginning with diplomacy and development, which can enable him to meet the goals he usefully set forth today.

At West Point, President Obama made a good start. But the U.S. “Supertanker-of-State” cannot be set firmly on a new course “on the cheap” or without a coherent set of strategies.

Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a commencement speech at the U.S. Military Academy Graduation and Commissioning Ceremony in West Point, New York on May 28, 2014. Credit: Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Fincham

Robert E. Hunter

Robert E. Hunter served as US ambassador to NATO (1993-98) and on the National Security Council staff throughout the Carter administration, first as Director of West European Affairs and then as Director of Middle East Affairs. In the last-named role, he was the White House representative at the Autonomy Talks for the West Bank and Gaza and developer of the Carter Doctrine for the Persian Gulf. He was Senior Advisor to the RAND Corporation from 1998 to 2011, and Director of the Center for Transatlantic Security Studies at the National Defense University, 2011-2012. He served on the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board and is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.

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